Zenith
by Serria
Summary: Perhaps it's the rain, but L feels grownup for the first time. No one has ever been up this high with him before, and together, on toddling like acrobats on raised stakes, he and Light can see the sky. L/Light


Disclaimer: _Death Note_ does not belong to me.

Rating: PG (aside from some angst this one's pretty harmless)

* * *

**ZENITH**

* * *

The thing about kids is they laugh and they cry, and they do one or the other interchangeably. It makes no difference. Children aren't kind, the intricate concept of mercy is lost behind their wide-eyed stares. They are a programmed species, stumbling toward perfection with a million years of evolution and what instead they focus on is getting (taking) what they want and surviving. The downfall of others, a weakling beat until he's bleeding and can't stand or underwear stolen and trampled in the mud, now, that's a joke. Now, that's entertainment.

L himself knows this well. The children at the orphanage have evolved to hardened brick or disappeared in trying. You cry at first, but then soon realize that a) no one actually cares, and b)your fortunate position depends on competition, and when you're an orphan that means an uphill battle with natural selection. You cry less. You deny you ever cried and try to forget how to do it again. And you laugh and laugh when the failures of Darwinism fall and scrape their knees, you laugh because you earned that right - _that's_ the one true nature of being the best. _That's_ what evolution is about.

Exceptional marks, national academic recognition and a police chief father, Light Yagami doesn't think he's a child, hasn't been a child since about nine or so when he first babysat Sayu. But he's scared with a gun to his face and now, now he's at the top (just what he wanted) over Ryuuzaki, and he worked hard so that now he can clutch his stomach and cackle until tears are pouring and he can't breathe.

Twenty-five years old, L is seven years Light's senior, and perhaps it's the rain but he thinks _oh, now I don't feel so childish anymore._ This is what it feels like, this is how it works, and now he's crossed a burned bridge that's crumbled behind him and he couldn't return if he wanted to. It's not conducive anymore to over-think, worrying never affects the end result and merely clouds your judgment, but only an adult knows that humans are sickeningly mortal. It's the moment of justice (of truth) with two lives on the line. If L's arrangements with the ICPO prove fruitful, Light's execution is near, but if whatever Light hides his smile about is more grand then that's it for L. That's what losing will feel like.

Strange, but evidently, such a thing can occur.

Even L doesn't know himself anymore, and he doesn't know why he pretends to hear wedding bells when he has Light all alone in the cold roof (the cameras out here will be impeded by the weather anyway). Weddings are such a grown-up thing, in fact, they are a useless, mundane thing that has no merit to L unless it relates directly to another case and criminal profiling. He thinks, perhaps, that Light is his perfect match. Light strives to win and he has the ability to back up his ambition - something rare and something precious. They toddle together like acrobats on the stakes they raised and they know somebody's going to fall - but no one has ever been _up this high_ with L Lawliet before, and together, on raised stakes, together they see the sky.

(vast atmospheres filled with nitrogen, oxygen and other gaseous matter essential for supporting human life - beautiful, why has it been so long since he noticed it? Is it because never before was Light here, in the zenith, to provide lumination required by the human eye to perceive the brilliance of color?)

But it's silly and you can't marry children, anyway. Light will laugh, if he can, and dance upon L's grave as he murders everyone who tries to mess up the child's game of righteousness that he himself conceived. You can't marry children. Light won't be dressed in white and kissed upon the lips at the nuptial vows, Light won't be carried away with a wedding band instead of handcuffs to be claimed as L's own, to have and to hold, until death do them part.

The last part, L supposes, is actually true.

"I hear bells. Is it a wedding..? Or maybe..."

"What?" Light, he won't pretend - this kind of pretend is only for grownups and he's too close to winning (too close to being lost forever), he can't afford to falter. He knows survival of the fittest, but he's only eighteen and he wants to be a god. An immortal child soaring to the zenith. "I don't hear anything."

_Or maybe a funeral_, L thinks as he brings Light inside and dries his feet as the water drip, drip, drips. Light is uncertain now, but he'll doubtlessly be laughing soon enough. A wedding, a funeral, children don't need to comprehend either to get what they want or to survive until tomorrow.

-fin

* * *

Author's Notes:

-I wanted to try writing something shorter than usual, so this is it. I tend to be long and wordy, I think, so this was good practice. Might be a little long to call a drabble, but hey, here we are.

Thanks for reading!

* * *


End file.
